Re: AMERICA'S enemies smell blood and it's type "O." (The Kenyan Sets New Records For Incompetence!)
Energy crisis?
Flashback: Carter & Reagan Debate Energy
In the 1980 debate between Carter and Reagan, Carter gave a realistic view of America's energy situation and called for development of domestic sources and better conservation policy. Reagan countered not by citing facts but by appealing to emotion and national pride, saying America was "energy rich" and deriding Carter for calling on Americans to cut back consumption.
Now, a quarter of a century later, Carter is vindicated on energy policy. America is not "energy-rich," especially in regards to oil. We are energy-dependent. Even if we opened up every last inch of America's frontier and wilderness heritage to cheap leases for oil companies we would still be dependent on foreign oil. Yet even as Bush publically admits that we are "addicted to oil" he has slashed funds for researching renewable and sustainable resources and resisted Democratic conservation efforts.
Republicans have a generational gap in their understanding of the relationship between security, sustainability and energy independence.
Also, the new energy policy has been predicated on two factors: One is conservation, which requires sacrifice, and the other one, increase in production of American energy, which is going along very well - more coal this year than ever before in American history, more oil and gas wells drilled this year than ever before in history. --Jimmy Carter,
Carter-Reagan debate, 1980
When Carter became President in 1976, the
importance of oil to national security was clear to everyone. Oil prices had dramatically increased in 1973 at the outset of the Yom Kippur War, when the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) targetted the US and other Western nations with an oil embargo as part of a strategy to reclaim Arab land that was occupied by Israel in the Six Day War of 1967. During Carter's Presidency, the relationship between national security and oil became even more clear when Iranian Revolution precipitated another spike in prices. Still, rather than acknowledging this relationship and accepting the challenge it posed, Reagan chose to spin and attack Carter for scapegoating and mocked Carter for suggesting that Americans need to sacrifice and conserve.
Reagan's rhetoric was of course masterful as he went right to the conservative playbook and blamed everything on federal spending and deficits (which doubled as a percentage of GNP during his Presidency), but he failed even to acknowledge the reality of the problems that Carter was busy confronting and ignored the importance of oil to national security:
[President Carter] has blamed the people for inflation, OPEC, he has blamed the Federal Reserve system, he has blamed the lack of productivity of the American people, he has then accused the people of living too well and that we must share in scarcity, we must sacrifice and get used to doing with less. We don't have inflation because the people are living too well. We have inflation because the Government is living too well. --Ronald Reagan,
Carter-Reagan debate, 1980
For Carter, energy issues were central to economic development. While his energy initiatives did include shifting reliance from foreign oil to domestically produced non-renewable resources like coal and gas because he saw the security implications, he also had a broader vision for locally independent and self-reliant communities. When asked how to help low-income communities, Reagan offered abolishing the minimum wage, while Carter countered with his vision:
There is no doubt in my mind that in the downtown central cities, with the, with the new commitment on an energy policy, with a chance to revitalize homes and to make them more fuel efficient, with a chance for our synthetic fuels program, solar power, this will give us an additional opportunity for jobs which will pay rich dividends. --Jimmy Carter,
Carter-Reagan debate, 1980
Carter's ideas about
investment in energy independence for America and for American communities stands in stark contrast to Reagan's false optimism. While Carter called for a combination of development of domestic energy sources and investment in new energy sources, particluarly solar, Reagan struck familiar campaign themes. Asked if America's dependence on foreign oil would mean steadily increasing energy costs, Reagan expressed optimism, calling America "energy rich," ignored the nationalization of the oil industries in many countries and the emergence of cartels like OPEC and replied as if the Department of Energy were meddling in an otherwise free market, rather than responding to a
real threat to long term national security:
I'm not so sure that it means steadily higher fuel costs, but I do believe that this nation has been portrayed for too long a time to the people as being energy-poor when it is energy-rich. . . I just happen to believe that free enterprise can do a better job of producing the things that people need than government can. The Department of Energy has a multi-billion-dollar budget in excess of $10 billion. It hasn't produced a quart of oil or a lump of coal, or anything else in the line of energy. --Ronald Reagan,
Carter-Reagan debate, 1980
Reagan's "plan" was to cut energy costs by letting producers pollute more, by subsidizing nuclear power and by opening up all of our public land to exploratin and drilling. To be sure, there's aspects of Carter's energy policy that conservationists might take issue with. For example, Carter expanded offshore drilling:
The offshore drilling rights is a question that Governor Reagan raises often. As a matter of fact, in the proposal for the Alaska lands legislation, 100% of all the offshore lands would be open for exploration, and 95% of all the Alaska lands, where it is suspected or believed that minerals might exist. We have, with our five-year plan for the leasing of offshore lands, proposed more land to be drilled than has been opened up for drilling since this program first started in 1954. So we're not putting restraints on American exploration, we're encouraging it in every way we can. --Jimmy Carter,
Carter-Reagan debate, 1980
A quarter century of domestic exploration has shown that
we cannot drill our way to energy independence. Expanding domestic production and shifting electricity production from oil to coal was a sound national security plan, but ought to only have been a transitional fix as part of a comprehensive program that included funding for renewable energy and a sustainable economy. Reagan only saw opportunities to subsidize non-renewable consumption by giving tax exemptions to oil producers, further expanding and cheap leases on public lands, and allowing more free waste disposal (ie, pollution). Carter's plan used revenues from things like windfall taxes to truly
invest in American security through a sustainable energy economy.
Seeing that energy security would be America's great challenge in the 21st century, Carter created a cabinet level Department of Energy. Before Carter America got 20% of its electricity from oil generation. Carter shifted that to resources like coal and natural gas that were more available domestically, acheiving a reduction to 3%. That's a real and tangible result. Looking ahead Carter invested in renewable resources that didn't pollute the way coal does, like solar energy. He even put up solar panels on the White House, which Reagan tore down when he gutted the solar research program.
Reagan even fired two researchers that went on to win Nobel prizes.
Moreover, Carter lead a national conservation push, showing leadership and setting an example by wearing a cardigan in tv appearances. Preferring political cheapshots to real confrontation with the issue of energy security, Carter was and still is mocked for this by conservatives.
Conservatives just fail utterly to see the challenges we face and cannot be trusted to confront them. Carter's conservation push was not just symbolic, however. He pushed for fuel economy standards that further reduced oil consumption, though the initial impact of these has since been dampened by Republican efforts to preserve loopholes and tax rebates for SUVs.
We need a real energy plan for independence and
the oil men in the Republican Party have shown that they lack the vision and attention to energy security to put the American economy on sustainable footing. Republicans can no longer claim to be the party of "naitonal security" as long as they block efforts toward the independence, renewability, sustainability and conservation that will bring America true security. The best the right can come up with is to echo Reagan: "cut taxes" (for an industry with record profits), "drill everywhere" (even though there's not enough oil to be independent anyway), "deregulate" (pollute the air and water). That's not a real, comprehensive plan.
Democrats need to show real leadership and vision on this issue, to do more than just scapegoat oil companies. What we need now is a real vision for energy independence, one that starts by weening America off resources that make us dependent on corrupt foreign dictators or on spoiling and polluting our environment. This is really just a basic matter of national security and Republicans frankly just don't get it. They never have and it represents a generational blindness and weakness on a fundamental security issue.
In the 20th century, Ameica led the world in innovation, but under Bush's leadership
we are falling further and further behind in the renewables race that will define the 21st century. The Republican Party, which rejects science on so many issues, is not fit to lead America in the 21st century. The Democratic plan must be
the next step in America's great tradition of national cooperation and innovation on fundamental scientific and technological advancement. Meanwhile, we need real measures to begin to improve conservation. With gas prices at the forefront of American's concerns the time is right to remind the country of Carter's vision, expose Republican failures of policy and understanding, and to show the path forward in the 21st century.
http://ifthenknots.typepad.com/weblog/2006/04/in_the_1980_deb.html
